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Wikipedia has an entry for Anthropodermic Bibliopegy(opens in a new tab), or the practice of binding books in human skin. A group of scholars and scientists have been working to test these books to see if they really are bound in human skin or not. Last summer UCLA Library contracted with a science lab to find out once and for all if our little 1676 copy of Relation des mouvemens de la ville de Messine depuis l’année MDCLXXI jusques á present is covered in a deceased human or some other creature.
Dan Kirby, of Analytical Services in Milton MA, is a conservation scientist who has done PMF-MALDI testing from pencil point size samples of skin. PMF-MALDI involves the “enzymatic digestion of proteins (PMF) followed by Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization Time of Flight Mass Spectrometric (MALDI) analysis. This allows the collagen in the hide to reveal its unique mammalian amino acid sequence. A human sequence will be marked by one pattern, and some other creature will be revealed by a different pattern. I was able to supply Dr. Kirby with analytical samples after the librarians associated with the book gave permission for me to cut away the tiny pieces of skin from the binding. Each sample site was documented.
The testing report shows, once and for all, that UCLA owns a book bound in sheepskin, not in human skin. Our catalog entry(opens in a new tab) now makes this analysis clear, though at some point an owner wrote on the first page that the book was bound in human skin. Perhaps more interesting than our now definitive answer to the species of bookbinding material for this book, is the question of why anyone would ever write in the first page of their book that it was bound in human skin. Romantic, macabre, increase the market value? Some books in other libraries have revealed, after testing, to indeed be bound in human skin—clearly our curiosity about this uncommon bookbinding practice remains.